Franklin County, Columbus Rat Control Situation:
Thank you for all the extremely useful info on your site. I really appreciate your site and it is very informative. I was unable to find on your site a suggestion for my situation. I live in a day light basement. It's very nice, however there are rats between the upstairs floor of the house and my ceiling. My landlord spent 1600.00 with a company to seal off the house. Guess this did not work. I am starting to smell rat urine in the air. The upstairs reeks. Do you have a suggestion and is it harmful to be breathing this? I have an exterminator coming out to our home Monday. In the past couple of weeks we have been hearing and smelling offensive things. We found a few holes and then came the dropping under the stove and dishwasher and fridge. I am in full blown panic mode. Now I am worried about the cleanup of what's in the walls. I believe I read there is some type of "stuff" or bacteria that is safe and breaks down the feces? Is this true? Is there any way to ensure a sanitary home at this point?
Hi David, I live in a nice neighborhood [Columbus Ohio.] and solved my house rat problem [attic and crawl space just as you advise]. I have a motorhome stored by the side of my house and and had $1,700 worth of electrical wire damage 5 years ago. All damage was below the coach living quarters in wire runs which cross on top of fuel ,water, and sewage tanks. I have been able to isolate and close some of these spaces but not all. In addition the generator set box, room slide out space, and vented battery boxes do not lend themselves to isolation. I had one more instance of rat damage to wiring which I fixed myself 2 years ago. Anytime I see signs of rats I set multiple traps everywhere I can set them. I almost always catch one rat , never more. I have used have usd 8 trays of various repellants which I place at various previous rat sign locations. You list all of mine as useless and You are likely right. I could set traps permanently but they need to be checked , rebaited etc and at age 76 I'm getting damn tire of rolling around on a creeper under my motorhome with 1 1/2 ft of clearance to the house on the right side and 6" clearance to a fence on the left. Any suggestions ?
Columbus Rat Control Tip of The Week
What Can I Do About A Trap-Shy Rat?
There are instances where rats tend to be trap-shy by trying as much as possible not to get too close to the trap to avoid getting caught. This particular situation can be a result of several reasons. The first and most common reason is that the rats have witnessed other rats getting trapped. Another reason is that the rats might be scared of the newly introduced object along their route.
Whatever the reason might be, getting the rats to put aside their fears and go for the bait requires a whole lot of planning and patience. Right here, we will be taking you through what you can do to stop the rats in your home from being trap-shy.
Aside from being a very common household pest, rats are habitual and will study their environment as much as they can in other to easily detect when something goes wrong or differs from the way it used to be. This naturally prompts them into being trap-shy when they notice the unusual new trap in their environment.
To stop this and make the rats in your home attracted to baits, you are going to have to take your time and repeat the following process continuously. The first thing you have to do is to make the rats in your home feel comfortable around the traps. To achieve this, all you have to do is place unset traps along their route and let them move around it without getting trapped. Naturally, rats like to move around on sawdust. You can also place sawdust on and around the traps to make it more appealing to them and make them feel comfortable and safe around the trap.
After doing that for a while, you can then go ahead and set the traps with bait. To increase your chances of trapping them, you can choose to place sawdust on and around the traps.
